My 2020 season was one of my favorite to date and even a messed up ankle can’t take away the many peaks, many beautiful landscapes, great memories with great friends and all of the many wonderful experiences I was lucky enough to enjoy. Marvel Peak was certainly a highlight among many!
An unbelievable smorgasbord of bubbling brooks, golden larches, high passes, rushing streams, waterfalls, glistening alpine lakes, hidden routes, ancient glaciers, tarns and ridges to one of the highest peaks above Egypt Lakes.
As I crossed the Highwood River and hiked back up to the truck I was once again struck by how lucky I am. Despite all the other commitments in my life, I still have plenty of time and opportunity to enjoy beautiful days alone in the hills with nothing but tiny shrews, forests of larches, cheerful rivers, winding trails, solemn mountains and my own thoughts to keep me company.
This is another highly recommended “Nugara Scramble” that deserves the attention it obviously gets by the busy summit registers on both peaks. I can only imagine that with clearer air and better views then I had, this would be a pretty darn nice short day trip for scramblers comfortable on moderate terrain.
I really enjoyed Mount Glendowan – even with the smokey conditions we had. It really is one of the best Waterton scrambles that I’ve done and I’ve done most of them. The fact that the winds were fairly light helped, but the scrambling on ascent combined with the easy scree on descent was icing on the cake.
I highly recommend this scramble for anyone wanting to dip their toes into a “Nugara Difficult” and looking for a colorful hike in Waterton Lakes National Park.
There aren’t very many places on Earth where named summits have almost 30 year gaps in their ascents – especially in a national park and along pretty good trail systems. I feel extremely privileged to have the health and time to enjoy such a wide variety of clean and beautiful landscapes in our amazing Rockies back yard.
It was hard not to enjoy life as we sat in silence and listened to the night life start up around us in the forest. Reflecting back on our special trip up Panther Mountain as I fell asleep was just about the perfect way to end a perfect summer day.
I loved Block Mountain much more than I was expecting to. The bushwhacking and thrashing up the creek wasn’t nearly as bad as I was expecting and the views once over the 2500m col were even better than advertised. A highly recommended remote and easy peak for those folks willing to brave a slick, cold, obviously wet creek on approach.
Mount Abruzzi should be on every Rockies scrambler’s list. It’s a large, prominent, beautiful peak that is very easy to attain in a day from a trailhead. There are many different routes, all are pretty simple and all have their pluses and minuses.
This trip will go down in my books as a top 1 or 2 – at least for a long while. It was a real adventure, seeking out a new route into one of Banff’s most remote and untraveled valleys. What more could we want?
With wildflowers blooming everywhere, sheep grazing peacefully and views of new peaks and lush valleys this is a tough trip to beat!
An epic 3-day backpacking, hiking and scrambling trips from Ya Ha Tinda up the Red Deer River and McConnell Creek valleys.
Sometimes you have to test your limits and that is never going to be comfortable. We learned something about our ability to push ourselves on this particular adventure and learning things about yourself is never a bad thing IMHO.
Mount Soderholm is already a classic in my books. How can it not be? The unexpected trail, the perfect snow conditions in the avalanche gully and the incredible views from the west ridge and summit all combined to make this a top ascent for 2020.
Summit Elevation (m): 2865 Elevation Gain (m): 1050 Round Trip Time (hr): 8.5 Total Trip Distance (km): 19 Quick ‘n Easy Rating: Class 2 – You fall you sprain something – unless you’re in an avalanche. Then you could definitely die. Difficulty Notes: Winter ascent includes serious avalanche risks. Learn how to manage these risks and perform avalanche burial rescues before attempting this trip. Technical Rating: OT4; YDS (Skiing) Map: Google Maps I can’t believe it’s already been 8 years since I last skied […]
An unbelievable smorgasbord of bubbling brooks, golden larches, high passes, rushing streams, waterfalls, glistening alpine lakes, hidden routes, ancient glaciers, tarns and ridges to one of the highest peaks above Egypt Lakes.
A long awaited journey to the summit of the highest peak in the huge Castle Mountain massif with views to match – Pulsatilla Mountain.
Honestly, I’m not sure what I was expecting from our day on Clearwater Mountain but in the end it highly exceeded anything I anticipated. The day was flat-out gorgeous and the mountain was flat-out fun.
People might wonder what the big deal is for me and these silly peaks that few people are even aware of but that’s the whole point for me. Who can say they’ve seen Mamen Peak and Mount Malloch from different angles or even laid eyes on Roaring Creek?
A long awaited journey up one of Banff’s more remote and hard to access mountains.
A 3.5 day journey into the heart of Banff National Park triangulated by the Pipestone, Clearwater and Siffleur Rivers.
Obviously this is an unofficial summit but I don’t care about that sort of thing anymore. I expected some spectacular views and a fairly easy ascent based on photos from Molar and Molarstone peaks. I planned the excursion as a day trip via the Mosquito Creek / North Molar Pass trail and the weekend of August 17th presented me with a good opportunity for a solo explor8ion.
After biking, hiking and scrambling for many hours and many kilometers in the past 28 hours or so it was finally time for Phil Richards, Joanna Ford and I to attempt the highlight objective of our so-called “Three Passes” trip.
Where do I even start with this report? I guess I’ll just start at the beginning and see where this story goes as I access my overloaded memory banks…
